California

San Mateo Police Set Up DUI Checkpoint Downtown

With New Year's around the corner, police officers will be out in force looking for drunk drivers, as people start their celebrations early.

In San Mateo, officers were getting ready to set up a DUI checkpoint Saturday evening. Police said they will be out at East Fourth Avenue and South Grant Street.

That is on the edge of downtown where there are a lot of restaurants and bars that are popular with Peninsula residents. The location is used often to get onto Highway 101.

Law enforcement officers said checkpoints lower DUI deaths and injuries. Research shows crashes involving an impaired driver can be reduced by up 20 percent when well-publicized DUI checkpoints and patrols are conducted routinely.

In California, drunk driving led to 802 deaths and nearly 24,000 injuries in 2012 because someone failed to bring a designated driver.

While officers will be looking for signs of drinking, San Mateo police will also have specially-trained officers available to evaluate drugged drivers, which now account for a growing number of impaired driving crashes.

And it’s not just impairment from illegal drugs, but also from prescription and some over-the-counter drugs.

"Impairment is impairment, so whatever you have in your system that's causing you to be impaired and behind the wheel, it makes you equally dangerous," San Mateo Police Lt. Dave Norris said. "Whether you have drugs in your system that are impairing you or whether you have alcohol in your system that's impairing you, it's making you dangerous on the roadway and we want to get those folks off the road."

The DUI checkpoint will begin at 7 p.m. and will last until 2 a.m.

San Rafael also had a DUI checkpoint Friday night. After screening more than 1,300 vehicles, police issued a dozen citations and made two arrests.

A DUI arrest can be expensive. The costs can exceed $10,000 in fines, attorney fees, insurance hikes, and other expenses.

Police said 90 percent of California drivers approve of checkpoints.

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